My friend has an Alpina Z4 (similar to an M) – it’s lovely.

For my midlife crisis I ended up with a defender 110.

@flip I came to the thread to recommend a Cayman. Its a great choice. I am biased as I have one of the first ones, Cayman S ordered in 2006 and delivered in 2007. Great performance, very nimble, more unusual than Boxter’s and half the price of a 911. I don’t use mine for biking but there’s regularly one in the Surrey Hills (as you’d expect 😉 ) with a roofrack and bike. Mine his pretty low milage (only 35k) but it’s cost me only £250pa in servicing (2 year service intervals) at main dealer.

Porka 996 Turbo worth a look for an exciting and usable car that will possibly increase in value over the next 10 ish years. For me though, I’d go a little older, maybe a nice 993 – Definitely porsche though.

You’d have to add on another £10k to the budget for a 996 turbo. They are going up in value.

Proper 2nd car, something that gets you tingling every time you use it – Caterham… Nothing else comes close! (maybe a Westie). Every trip feels very special.

Skoda Octavia?

No? I’ll get my coat.

If it’s for driving thrills/pleasure £10k – £15k on a monster Westfield or Caterham would be the way to go. Spend the change on track days and spares, decent tyres and pads are seriously expensive. Or if you’re looking for a big torque-pedo then AMG mercs are stupidly cheap. You can easily get 500bhp, low mileage cars for your budget. But maintenance.

If it’s got to be Porsche I’d go Cayman. Porsche seem to be doing a good job of fostering their reputation as a drivers car with the GTS and GT4 so that should help keep their values up, whereas the Boxster always has that trophy wife/hairdresser vibe. Either way you’d need to know your onions spending £20k on a car that cost £70k.

I’d be avoiding luxury marques and looking at something that will hold it’s value or appreciate, and would have said NSX/Escort Cosworth etc a couple of years ago, but now they’ve gone through the roof. Maybe a hot MK1 or MK2 escort before they all get to silly money?

Anyone with experience of the mystical Boxster engine bearing problem?

I was worried about this when I bought my boxter. Chatted to the guy in Porsche Indy to ask him how much for an IMS retrofit kit. He said in the last 12 years he had only seen around half a dozen of these bearings go across the boxter and 911 range, and assured me it wasn’t something to stress about.

I’m sure I may not have the same outlook when my engine blows up at the cost of 6k, but just giving another opinion. Plenty of old boxters still on the roads afterall..you only hear about the broken ones.

I was worried about this when I bought my boxter.

My missus bought herself a 987 Boxster about 5 years back and has had it since.. When we were looking I did loads of reading up on the IMS issues, and figured out pretty much the same thing – there’s a lot of p’d off people who have had problems that make a lot of noise, but there aren’t actually all that many failures. Porsche refined the design over time – by the time it got to the 987 model (2005ish) and the slightly later revision (with the 3.4 engine I think) they pretty much had it sorted. If you are worried about it you can get a product called IMS guardian that checks for metal particles in the sump and sounds an alarm if you want some piece of mind.

In terms of it as a midlife crisis car – I’d seriously consider one.. It’s great to drive, not ridiculous running costs, ours has been reliable, and it has a magical ‘something’ about it that a lot of other cars don’t have – polished up on a sunny day with the roof down and the flat 6 howling it just makes you happy… I’d have one over a Cayman just for putting the roof down, they don’t drive any differently to each other day to day (maybe on the track you could tell the difference though…)